Multiliteracies in Secondary Chemistry

Digital technologies can play an important and significant role in improving students’ understanding and literacies (e.g., visual, digital, and critical literacies). To develop such multiliteracy skills, students need opportunities to process and communicate information or use specialised representations that characterise a subject area, often through multiple modalities. Digital technologies are important learning tools for helping students to interpret and communicate information multimodally. In chemistry, in particular, digital technologies are effective tools for supporting students’ understanding and representation of chemical concepts on macroscopic, molecular, and symbolic levels. Designing and scaffolding appropriate learning experiences in chemistry can be a challenge for teachers, particularly when integrating digital technologies with laboratory-based activities. The purpose of this chapter is to outline how a multiliteracies framework can be used to develop and deliver an investigative inquiry unit of work to chemistry students. It describes a scaffolding model developed and investigated through a study in which an introductory unit in senior chemistry was taught using a multiliteracies approach. It also describes student learning outcomes and perceptions of the usefulness of this scaffolding approach as these were identified through the study.

Multimodal, Multiliteracies

The shift from traditional definitions of literacy focused upon print, primarily reading and writing, to multiple literacies has highlighted the significance of attending to different modes of text design and multiple forms of knowledge processes. Today’s students engage with complex semiotic systems; therefore, while teaching and learning attends principally to print media, multimodality and multiliteracies have become central to effective pedagogical practice. Some teachers have moved away from a singular focus on print texts to incorporating multiple design modes that are linguistic, spatial, visual, gestural and aural – to enable valuable, comprehensive learning for today’s multiliterate, multiskilled students. In this chapter, the authors discuss the Design modes proposed by the New London Group (1996; 2000), and the Learning by Design pedagogy advocated by Kalantzis and Cope (2005) to highlight effective learning based on multimodal, multiliteracies. The chapter provides a vignette of a multimodal activity in a primary class and argues for the extension of such learning through the incorporation of multiliteracies. They conclude the chapter by providing a framework for a possible multiliteracies project incorporating multiliteracies pedagogies and learning from the classroom vignette.

Multiliteracies and the New World Order

Due to the importance of literacy as a key component in many education programs it appears that more than any other curriculum area its history has been marked by continual change in terms of theoretical positioning, shifts in definition and pedagogical practice. Whilst change is often viewed as a positive occurrence, recently teachers of literacy have experienced a rapid period of change in both their practice and the theoretical and research based beliefs that underpin it. This chapter will provide a brief overview of some of the ways in which literacy pedagogy has encompassed a diverse range of forms of communication and meaning making commonly referred to as ‘multiliteracies’.

ICT Integration in Second Language Writing

As the integration of information and communications technologies (ICT) in Singapore schools reaches a considerable level of maturity and stability, a pertinent question is: how has ICT integration impacted on pedagogy in Singapore schools? The present study attempts to address this question through interpretive, case-study research in two Singaporean secondary schools. The study found the use of ICT was limited in its perceived pedagogical value by teachers. A lack of appreciation and/or understanding of the complexity of the process or culture shift required for ICT to be implemented and integrated effectively into the Malay Language Curriculum along with conformity to policy directions resulted in underutilisation and uncritical use of ICT tools, and an adherence to the traditional method of assigning tasks and the maintenance of existing practices.

Pragmatism and Philosophy

The purpose of this paper was to investigate how a secondary boys’ College has sought to create a cultural alliance between a spatial literacy which expresses an officially sanctioned version of the past and a contemporary curriculum that embraces a far broader understanding of this concept. This investigation of spatial literacy was contextualised through the curriculum plan of the College which seeks to educate students through a student-centred curriculum that aims to develop critically aware and culturally sensitive world citizens. The perceptions of key teachers were also examined which revealed their increasing use of school spaces to address political, philosophical and environmental issues in their pedagogical approach.

Riding Critical and Cultural Boundaries

This chapter explores the impact of new technologies on young peoples’ literacy practices, with a particular focus on humour as text. Acknowledging ways in which rapidly-changing cultural and technological conditions have reshaped how people work and play, the authors work within expanded definitions of literacy, or multiliteracies. Exploring the potential of humour to interrogate cultural assumptions, Australian and American students participated in a cross cultural television study. They viewed a ‘foreign’ sitcom, asking to what extent knowledge of the sitcom’s cultural norms was fundamental to an appreciation of the intended humour of the series. The student cohorts then communicated on line, developing their reading of the sitcoms in a cross cultural forum. The study asks how the students’ multiliterate practices, including their critical interpretations of television comedy, hold implications for literacy education.

Multi-Cultural E-Learning Teamwork

Virtual teamwork in the e-learning classroom has provided opportunities for merging social theory and learning theory, mixing technology, culture, identity, and community. Online learning teams have generated attention to the social and cultural characteristics that influence these global interactions. This chapter discusses the prevalence of eight traditional dimensions of culture occurring during online learning team interaction. A study with graduate students, who were experienced in virtual teamwork, provides quotes and examples of experiences, challenges, and suggestions for improvement to the multicultural, virtual team experience. The students’ suggestions inform guidelines for e-learning faculty and students, while additional study results present understanding of the acculturation process, a process that occurs when diversified social and cultural characteristics come together and form a cultural hybrid to accomplish e-learning team goals.

Robotics as a Vehicle for Multiliteracies

This chapter is a catalyst for encouraging educators to use robotics as a vehicle for multiliteracies. This chapter will provide compelling, practical evidence of the multimodal nature of robotics, highlighting the potential of robotics to encompass any or all of the linguistic, spatial, visual, audio and gestural elements of multiliteracies, as described by the New London Group (1996). The social and technological benefits for both genders arising from the integration of robotics into the curriculum, and their importance in a rapidly changing world are discussed, as is the need for educators to learn how to facilitate a learning environment that entices students to take risks and solve problems through the development of higherorder thinking skills. Robotics crosses curriculum boundaries, and engages and motivates students of all ages by making learning directed and real.

Theorizing Media Productions as Complex Literacy Performances Among Youth In and Out of Schools

In this chapter the author explores the ways media production represents sophisticated identity and cultural work, and therefore complex literacy performances, among youth as they engage in a play of genres and subject positioning in particular social (educational and community) spaces. Two major research projects in which youth participated in media production form the basis for theorizing in this chapter. Four cases illustrate the ways particular youth design new, hybrid multimodal genres, and how they engage in new models of authorship and cultural critique in this process. Although “youth culture” is often referred to as an undifferentiated phenomenon, this work is highly context-specific, revealing multiple and diverse sub-communities in which specific kinds of cultural and critical work are being undertaken. The author concludes with a challenge to transform schools and classrooms to reflect the increasingly multimodal landscapes in which youth reside.

The Dynamic Design of Learning with Text

In this chapter, the authors explore the current challenges facing educational institutions to design learning spaces congruent for learning with and through multimodal textual practices. The chapter reviews the inherent design, or grammar, of multimodal literacy practices and that of learning with these texts. Using examples from secondary and tertiary contexts, constructs from complexity theory offer a theoretical lens that is more generative for conceptualizing and analyzing dynamic literacy practices in educational institutions than multimodal literacy. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the tensions that arise form these examples, using Bourdieu’s (1984) habitus to problematize the future of designing dynamic educational spaces.